Luke chapter 5. We're looking
at verse 12 through verse 16. We'll read this together, and
then, by God's grace, I wish to expound this to you. Luke
chapter 5, verse 12. The title of the message is,
A True Leper Cleansed. A true leper. The Scripture says,
And it came to pass, When he was in a certain city, behold,
a man full of leprosy, who seeing Jesus, fell on his face, and
besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me
clean. And he put forth his hand, and
touched him, saying, I will. Be thou clean. And immediately
the leprosy departed from him. And he charged him to tell no
man, but go and show thyself to the priest and offer for thy
cleansing according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto
them. But so much the more went there
a fame abroad of him. and great multitudes gathered
together to hear and to be healed by him of their infirmities.
And, or but, he withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed."
Now, in this account, the Holy Spirit sets forth the healing
of a certain man in a certain village who was full of leprosy. This man was unclean. According to the law, he was
unclean. He was cast out. cast out from
his friends, cast out from his family, cast out from the people
of God and the worship of God. He was not allowed into the city. He was not allowed to mingle
with his family or his friends. He was cast out. Everything he
owned was taken and either purified or burned. Everything the man
touched was unclean, and by the law of God he was an outcast. He was stripped of his clothes,
he was given rags, his head was shaved, he was to walk about
in the outside of the city, and if anybody were to come to him,
he would have to cover his lip and cry, unclean, unclean. He was a leper. He was a leper,
cast out. And Jesus, by chance, by accident,
was passing by. Does that sound right? No. No. This was on purpose. Everywhere
Christ went was on purpose. Everything Christ did was on
purpose. And He was passing by. And this man, seeing Jesus, passing
by, fell at His feet and cried, If thou wilt, if you will, you
can make me clean. And as we always read Jesus answering
to the cry of the needy, what is His answer always to the needy?
What is His answer always to the sinner seeking mercy? It
is always an affirmative. I will, I will have mercy. Christ always has mercy to the
needy. He delivers the captives. He
gives sight to the blind. And even now, Jesus seeing this
man's need and hearing his plea, He puts forth His hand. This
is another thing that's a miraculous thing. It was against the law
for anyone to touch a leper. And look, the Lord Jesus Christ
touching this man. He Himself is the only one who
could not be unclean by touching him. He touched him and said,
I will, I will. Be thou clean. And what happened? Immediately, immediately, He
was cleansed. Without delay, without hesitation,
With the command of Christ always comes power. Power is in His
touch. Power is in His Word. He is God,
manifest in the flesh. He touched him and said, I will,
and immediately the man was cleansed. The leprosy, it says, departed
from him. And Jesus, still honoring the
Law. Remember, He had come to honor
the Law for His people. For all of His elect, He came
to provide righteousness by obedience to the Law. And what did He say?
He said, go to the priests, offer the sacrifices under the Law
for a testimony to them. Now, what is that cleansing law
that Moses had written about the leper? They were to offer
sacrifices. What did that picture? It pictured
what he was about to do. It pictured his death, his burial,
his resurrection, and his cleansing power. Jesus is the Lord, and
He willed that this man be clean, and he was. That was the result.
He was clean. Now, great miracle, right? I've just expounded something
that you could read and figure out all by yourself. It's a great
miracle. This meant a lot to this man,
didn't it? It meant a lot to him to be cleansed
of his leprosy. He had a great need. Christ came
and met that need by a touch and by a word. By His will, He
met that need of that man. But what does this have to do
with us? Why does the Holy Spirit give place to this miracle at
this time in Scripture? What is the purpose of this man
being healed? Even because all of the wonders
and miracles of Christ have one purpose. They all preach the
gospel. Every miracle, I can do this
with any miracle that Christ had performed. I can take the
miracle that Christ performed and preach to you the gospel.
Why? Because that's the intent of
the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit intends for us to learn how it
is God saves sinners. Is this not the most important
need of all of us, who are by nature sinners? We need salvation. So how is it that God can be
just and still justify the ungodly? It is always revealed in the
Scriptures by these miracles. It is a picture. A picture. Now
then, let's look at this as the picture. The man with leprosy.
Leprosy. What is that? What is this in
the picture? Leprosy. is always pictured in Scripture
as sin. Leprosy is a picture of sin. Now, leprosy is a real disease. But throughout the Scripture,
God testifies of its greater malady, a greater and deeper
and more harmful disease than leprosy. And that disease is
sin. Now listen, leprosy, it can consume
the body. But you pay attention, the leprosy
of sin can consume both body and soul. It is a greater malady. It is a greater disease than
leprosy. Sin. Leprosy. And the truth of the
matter is, and I want you to get this right off the bat, All
of us are lepers. When we are born into this world,
you and I are spiritual lepers. Born dead in sin. Born cast out from God. Born estranged from the womb,
speaking lies. Anybody teach you to lie? Or
do you figure that out all by yourself? No. You knew it. Because that's what we are. Sinners. We're liars. Thieves. Always
trying to rob God of His glory. Always defying God. The Scripture
says that by nature we are haters of God. Haters of God. By nature we despise the law
of God. Scripture says in Romans 8 and
verse 7, the carnal mind is at enmity against God. For it is not subject to the
law of God. Listen, neither indeed can be. Why? You're a leper. You're full
of leprosy from birth. Now then, in the Old Testament,
In the Old Testament, I want you to see how much God wants
to use this picture of leprosy. He gives two whole chapters concerning
leprosy in Leviticus, chapter 13 and chapter 14. Chapter 13
is about the examination of the leper. They had to examine the
leper to see if he was a true leper or not. The high priest
was to examine that man. And then in chapter 14 is the
ritual of cleansing. A leper was never cleansed by
ritual. Only God can cleanse a leper. Only God can. In the book of,
all through the Bible, only God is the one who healed lepers.
Nobody else. And so God gives precedent about this in two distinct
chapters. And if you would, after this
message, when you have time, read those two chapters with
this in mind, leprosy being a picture of sin. And we're going to go
over some of the things in those chapters, but I don't have time
for the fullness of it. Now, one thing about this leprosy
under the law, only the priests were allowed to examine. That's
kind of strange with the disease, don't you think? That only the
priests were allowed to examine leprosy? They didn't send them
to doctors. They sent them to the priest, to the high priest. He alone was able to examine
and determine whether he was leprosy or not. You listen, even
so it is with sin. No man by nature can know his
condition by self-examination. You see, nobody knows they're
a sinner by self-examination. The only one that can convince
you you are a sinner is God. Now I can stand up here all day
and tell you you're a sinner. I'm never going to convince you
you're a sinner. You'll always find justification for yourself,
and so would I. This is a part of our malady.
This is part of our sin nature, is that we are always justifying
ourselves. We're always trying to pawn off
our blame on others. Now what Adam did, woman you
gave me. What did the woman do? The serpent you sent. See, it's
always pawning it off. So we're always, we would never
know we're a leper by self-examination. Only God can reveal. Only the
Holy Ghost can make you. This one man wrote a hymn. He
said, a sinner is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost has made him one. In other words, the Holy Ghost
is the only one that can convince you of this fact. Only one. I
can't do it. The second thing about this in
the law of the leper is that there was no earthly cure for
leprosy. This is why they weren't sent
to the doctors. There was no earthly cure for leprosy. In fact, everything the leopard
touched was unclean. Everything. If he touched a person,
the person would be unclean. If he touched the chair, the
chair would be unclean. If he touched his clothes, his
clothes were unclean. Everything the leopard touched
was unclean. And so it is with us by nature. Everything we do is mixed with
sin. Everything. Our worship with
God is mixed. Right now, you're sitting here.
Are you wholly worshiping God with every ounce of your fiber?
No. Why? Because everything we do is mixed
with sin and self. It's contaminating everything
we do, everything we touch. What's the cure? There is none.
No earthly cure. There was no earthly cure for
leprosy, and listen, there is no earthly cure for sin. Try what you will. Go to the
church. Join the church. Eat the Lord's
Supper. Get dunked in the pool. Do what
you will. That will never cleanse you of
your leprosy of sin. Be as good as you want to. Try
to obey the law. You can't do it. Try it. You'll
fail. Why? You're a leper. Everything
we touch is full of sin. Everything. And so then there's
no earthly cure. By nature, we cannot ever be
accepted of God by our works. We cannot hide our leprosy from
God. Isn't that something? You know,
you got a leopard, he's got a spot here on his arm. What did he
do? He didn't put on a coat. He can hide it from you. One thing
about sin is you can't hide it from God. You can't. You can hide it from me. I'm
willingly fooled. I like to see good people, so
I try my best to see the good people. God's not that way. God cannot deceive Himself. He knows what you are. He knows
what you think. He knows how you feel. He knows
your thoughts, your motives, your intents of your heart more
than you do. God knows the leper. You can't
hide it from Him. In Scripture, we find that leprosy
can only be cured by God. Now, I'll give you an illustration
of this. Naaman, a Syrian captain. He was a great man, but he had
leprosy. And he had a little maiden that was in his wife's
possession, and she told him of a prophet in Israel. She said,
there's a prophet in Israel that could heal this man of his leprosy. And so Naaman, he's excited,
and he goes to his king, the king of Syria, and he says to
the king, he said, there's a man in Israel who can heal me. And
what does the king do? He says, well, I'm going to write
a letter to his king. That's what I'm going to do." And he
didn't understand how this works, so they went and took the letter
of the king to the other king, and he said, now you go get your
prophet, and you make your prophet heal my man. That's what they
thought. And when the king of Israel heard
this, you know what he did? He tore his clothes, and he said,
am I God? Am I God that I can heal this
man? You see, they all understood
this. Leprosy cannot be healed by any earthly means. Only God
could heal leprosy. Only God. And see, leprosy then is a clear
picture of our own sin. So then, our friend here, what
is he? He is a picture of a sinner. He is a picture of what we all
are by nature. Lepers. Lepers. And I'll tell you, this man,
he had a real need of healing, didn't he? It was real. He had
a real need of healing. But he had a Jesus Christ came into the world
to save sinners. Jesus said, I came not to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Now, it is my heart's
desire this day to preach to sinners. True sinners. I'm not preaching to fake lepers.
Now, if you've got a fake leprosy, this won't help you. If you don't
have leprosy, this won't help you. If you're not a sinner,
this won't help you. I'm preaching to sinners. Always
preach to sinners. Preach to myself every time.
Sinner. Sinner. And so then, as a sinner,
I would have you examine. Are you a sinner? Are you a sinner? Now, in the Old Testament, leprosy
had four distinct things that the priest had to look for. Four
things. First of all, leprosy had to
be deeper than the skin. I have a little scab up here
on my forehead. I don't know if you can see it
or not, but it's on the surface. Pretty soon it's going to flake
off and it'll heal up pretty nicely. Okay? That is not deeper
than the skin. That is not leprosy. It was just
on the skin. So somebody come in with the
bump and they say, here, I think I got leprosy. And the priest
looked at it and said, well, come back next week. Come back
next week and he flakes it off. No, that's not leprosy. Leprosy
has to be deeper than the skin. Listen, if you are a true sinner,
it is deeper than the skin. It's deeper than surface things.
Surface things. Now if you're guilt of sin, man
has a feeling of guilt and his conscience is pricked. Either
because he's sick or he's hurt or the consequence of his sin
has come on him and... What does he do? I'm going to turn over a new
leaf. Heard that one? Same leaf, turning it over. What
happens to one side that gets brown, he turns it over. Guess
what? In a week and a half, that side is just as brown as the
other side. Turns over a new leaf. What does that do? That's
surface stuff. He thinks that the remedy is
turning over a new leaf. They say, well, I'm going to
join the church. I'm going to get baptized. I'm going to do
good. Look, if that heals you, you
are not a leper. You don't have a need. for Christ. You're not a sinner. Your malady
must be deeper than the skin. I know this. I've seen it a hundred
times. Somebody come in and weeping and crying and saying, oh, I'm
a sinner. I'm a sinner. I don't know what
to do. I say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt
be saved. I tell them that. Because that's the gospel. Now,
I don't know if it's on the surface or not. At first, I'm hopeful. By and by, weeks pass, and pretty
soon, where'd they go? Wasn't nothing but surface guilt.
They didn't really have leprosy. When the Holy Spirit convinces
a person he has leprosy, it doesn't go away. You can't get rid of the guilt. Why? It goes deeper than the
skin. Matter of fact, it goes all the
way down to the heart. See, man doesn't have a surface
problem, he has a heart problem. And the very core of our heart
is corrupt and vile and wicked. Now friends, this is who I'm
describing me. This is who my nature is. It is corrupt. It is vile. It
is full of leprosy and deeper than the skin. The second thing
is that when you had this sore, a white hair would grow out of
the sore. And when the priest would pluck
it out, the whole hair would be white. You know what that
means? It was dead. Dead. The hair is dead from the
root. Not on the surface. It is dead
from the root. What does this mean? This means
everything that proceeds out of the leper is dead. That's
it. All my works are dead. All my
will is dead. All my hope is dead. Everything
I produce is nothing but death pouring out of the sinner. That's
all we do. The Apostle said this, in my
flesh dwelleth no good thing. No good thing. Everything within
us just pours and seeps out. You know, those wounds, they
would just puss up and you'd pop them and they'd just puss,
Paulo. That's exactly how God sees us
by nature. Puss pockets full of sin, putrefying. It's what he says, from the crown
of our head to the sole of our feet are nothing but wounds and
bruises and puss pockets. That's all we are. There is no
soundness, no goodness in us. This is what a sinner really
is. No goodness. He's dead and everything
he produces is death. The third thing about this leper
is this. A true leper, it spreads. That's the third thing they had
to look for. Is it spreading? You know, if you had a spot right
here and it didn't go anywhere else, it stayed right there,
he said, no, it's not leprosy. Leprosy spreads until it covers the whole
man. So it is with sin. Sin cannot
be contained by law. You put a law on me and I'm going
to break it. Why? Because sin spreads. It
can't be contained. Can your sin be contained by
law? Can you be contained by law? Can you be saved by law? No. No one is saved by law. What does law do? Law only causes
us to rebel. Wet paint don't touch. What's
the first thing you want to do? You want to touch it. Why? It spreads and it bursts out. It overwhelms you. You try to
restrain. You try to keep your mouth...
You see something, and man, you're just trying to keep your mouth
closed. You don't want to say it. You don't want to... And
all of a sudden, pooh, it just spits it right out. Why? It's
leprosy. Full of sin. And the fourth thing
about leprosy is this. It's got to be raw. to the touch. In other words, when that priest
touched that leper, he would jump with pain. So it is with the true leper.
The guilt and the sorrow for sin is painful. Sin is no longer a pleasure to
a leper. It's painful to the touch. Knowing that I must stand before
the Almighty God, and knowing God is holy and must punish sin,
it is painful to the conscience and the soul. And so then I must ask you, are
you a leper? Then you can identify with this
man. He was full of leprosy. Are you full of leprosy? Or do
you have some good spots? I got no good spots. Then I got a message for you.
I got some hope for you. Look at this man here, he is
full of leprosy. And he says he came to pass a
certain man in a certain city, he was full of leprosy, who seeing
Jesus fell on his face and besought him saying, Lord, if you will,
you can make me clean. You listen and pay attention,
you lepers. There's only one cure for you.
Jesus Christ is all the cure. There is no earthly cure, but
friends, there is a heavenly cure. There is a divine cure. It is in a person. It is not
in a creed. It is not in a doctrine. It is
not in a denomination. It is in a person, Jesus Christ. This man saw a person. He saw
Christ. This man had obviously heard
or seen or witnessed something. He knew something about this
man. He knew something about this man. Matter of fact, he
knew this man was God. He knew this. He said, what? Lord. Now who alone could heal
leprosy? We already described that. God
is the only one who could heal leprosy. And this man knew something
about Christ. He said, Lord, if you will, you
can. This man no doubt heard of Jesus,
and he comes, sees him coming, and he runs to him. And what
does he do? Does he make a bargain? Well, Jesus, you know, if I do
this, then will you heal me? Now, did he come to Christ as
an equal? Did he come to Christ saying, Lord, I will that you
heal me? Is that what he said? No. That's not how lepers come. You
see, what do lepers have? They have nothing but leprosy.
What could this man offer Christ? I'm going to get it personal.
What could you offer Christ? What do you have that he wants? Already owns it. Don't he own
you? He does. So what is that? How can you profit him? By what
thing would he be added to? How can you add to him anything? Now you could add to me and I
could add to you. But you can't add to Him. You have nothing.
We have nothing but leprosy to offer. And so what does He do? Does He come boasting of His
leprosy? Well, Lord, You made me this
way. That's what people think. You made me this way, so obviously
you've got to heal me. Nope, he didn't have to do anything
he don't want to. People think God owes them salvation. God don't owe you salvation.
If you want to know what God owes you, He owes you hell. That's
all He owes you. He owes you nothing else but
hell. Now if He gives you anything
else, it's just mercy. So how then does lepers come?
Seeing that Jesus Christ is the only one. Now listen, Jesus Christ
is the only one that can save lepers. Let me tell you why.
Because He is the only one that has died for sin. He is the only sacrifice for
sin. God sent His Son into the world
so that He might save sinners. Now, how should He cure our leprosy?
That's a good question. How should we be cured? I'll
tell you how. By Him taking your place under
the justice of God. You see, Christ came into the
world to save His people from their sins. God before the foundation
of the world. Listen, God chose a people that
He was going to save. God says, I've chosen a people.
And I'm going to save them. And I'm going to save them by
one way, by My Son. So He gives all of His people
to His Son. All of His elect, He says, Son,
these are My people. You will save them. And the Son
says, I will save them. And the Son comes in His power
and His might as a human being, as a man. He takes on our nature. And as a man, He obeys the law
of God in the stead of all of His people. And there He is on
Calvary's tree. God imputes our sin. God makes
Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we sinners might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. You see, this is
how God makes sinners clean. Only by the blood of the Son
of God. The Scripture says there shall
be a fountain open in that day for sin, and listen, Uncleanness. That word is for leprosy. Lepers
were unclean. This is the fountain open. Jesus
Christ's blood is the only way that a sinner is cleansed from
his sin. Well, so then, how does a leper
come? Seeing that Jesus is the only way to cure you, how should
you come? You should come exactly like this man did. This is a
good, good pattern right here. This man came not in pride, but
humility. Humility. The scripture says he fell on
his face. This man recognized he was not
worthy to even look at the Lord Jesus Christ. He was like that publican. You
remember the publican? The scripture says he would not
so much as look up his eyes to heaven. Why? He was a sinner.
He said, Lord, be merciful. To me. Listen, the sinner. He didn't know if anybody else
was a sinner, but he knew he was. Self-righteous people, they
know everybody else is a sinner. But themselves, but true sinners,
they don't know about anybody else. But as for me, as for me,
I'm the sinner. And he comes beseeching in humiliation,
Lord be merciful. Be merciful to me, propitiatous
to me, cleanse me. He came not in pride, He came
not in self-righteousness. You see, to come to Christ, you've
got to stop looking at everything you can do for Him and see what
only He can do for you. He said this, Lord, if you will, Now, was his cleansing dependent
upon Christ's will or his own? Whose will? It's Christ's will. How many people today say, well,
you can be saved if you want to. If you will make a decision
for Jesus, find it in the book. You won't find it in the book.
You won't find it. Why? The Scripture says, "...it
is not of him that willeth, or him that runneth, but God that
showeth mercy." You see, salvation is of the Lord. You must come
prostrate before the Almighty Christ and beg for mercy. You cannot demand mercy. It ruins the whole word, the
meaning of the word mercy. If it's merit, it's merit. If
it's mercy, it's mercy. You can't combine the two. If Christ is going to save you,
it is either by your merit or by mercy. Which is it? You're
a leper. What can you merit? You must
come seeking mercy. Absolute free mercy. In other words, it is all up
to you whether I die or live. Salvation belongs to God. And I want you to pay close attention.
He gives it to whomsoever He will. Now what does that do with your
will? It's gone. You have no power here. Do you feel helpless? You should. You should. I know this, if he saves me,
it will be all his fault. If I'm damned, it's all mine.
But if he saves me, it's all his. I can do nothing to merit
His mercy. But you helpless, hopeless, vile
lepers, to anyone who comes in this manner, I know this for
sure. Jesus Christ always says, I will. Why? Because He's gracious. Because He's not like you and
me. Praise God He's not. He is a
God of great compassion, full of mercy. Now you pay attention,
Christ was more willing to save this man than this man was to
be saved. Matter of fact, who organized
this whole thing and put it together? Think this man got leprosy by
accident? You think He came by accident and Jesus was just happening
to pass by this way and all of a sudden they slipped on a banana
peel and came together? No! God orchestrated the whole
thing! Of course He's willing! He purposed
it! He planned it! He executed it! He did it all! And if you ever
come to Christ, it'll be all God. It'll be all God. Why? Because He alone gets the
glory for all of it. He gets the glory for everything.
He says, I will be thou clean. This man, he came in humiliation,
but listen, he also came in faith, didn't he? He knew that if there
was any cleansing at all, Jesus had to be the one. And if you're
a leper, if the Holy Spirit ever teaches you you're a leper, he'll
teach you this, that Christ alone is the only one to save you.
Now, if you're helpless, you say, well, what if he won't?
Well, why would you leave if that's the only place to go? Stay at his feet and beg until
you draw your last breath. You know, there were four lepers
in Israel one time, and they were starving in the city. The
city was in a famine. They were starving to death inside
the city. Remember, they were outcasts.
They couldn't go in the city anyway. And they were starving in the
city. And they said, well, should we go into the city? If we do,
they'll stone us to death. And they said, well, the enemy's
out here. Maybe they'll give us bread or
they'll kill us. We don't know. We for sure would
die going this way. Maybe there's life out here.
And so they went out there. Remember, the Lord had killed
all those Philistines and there was enough bread for them. And
they started saying, well, man, we can't just keep this to ourselves.
We've got to go tell others. That's a picture of a true believer.
He said, peradventure, if I stay away from Christ, I'll die in
my sins. Surely, maybe He might have hope. Maybe there might
be life in Him. And so they peradventure go out.
And you know what you find? I will be thou clean. And when
a man believes in Christ, how quick do you suppose his sin
remains? What does the Scripture say? When Christ said, I will
be thou clean, how long did it take to get rid of that leprosy?
Immediately. When a sinner believes in Christ,
where does his sin go? Immediately it departs. And that
man is made as holy as the Son of God. One hymn writer said, with thy
righteous garments on, I am holy as God's Son. You get this? My sin is gone.
Why? He bore it away. He took my sin,
suffered for it, paid for it, and God says it's gone. Gone. If you've got a pen, you
should write this down. Jeremiah 50 and verse 20. And I'm going to read it. You
just write it down and you read it. Oh, if you would just read
it over and over and over again, it would bless your heart. Jeremiah
chapter 50 and verse 20. In those days and at that time,
saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for,
and there shall be none the sins of Judah, and they shall not
be found. Why? For I will pardon them whom
I reserve. God said, when I save a man,
I save that man and his sins, though I search for them. You
get that? God's searching. You know what God finds? He finds
no sin. Why? Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left
a crimson stain. He did what? He washed it white
as snow. Any lepers? Any lepers? You should leave off every hope
of saving yourself. Come right now to Christ and
submit to His sovereign will. If you will, you can. And He says, I will. I will. And all who He wills
are clean. Clean. Now this man, he was told by the
Lord, he said, I don't want you to tell anybody. I want you to
go back to the priest and you show them and this will be a
testimony to them. This will be a testimony to them.
The law is a testimony to Christ. Everything in it is a testimony
to Christ and His power to save. You don't suppose this man was
joyful. He was free. This man went back
to his home. This man went back to his family.
This man went back to worship God. He was accepted again. And listen, everyone's cleansed
of leprosy. You are accepted. Of who? God. God. But only true lepers. Only true lepers are cleansed.
Are you a true leper? Do you need true cleansing? Come now. Don't wait. If you
haven't come, come. If you have come, keep coming.
Isn't that right? I'm still coming to Christ. I'm
still believing on Christ. And you know what? He daily cleanses
me of all my sin. Every day. Every day. I don't
feel cleansed. I don't have to feel cleansed.
I am cleansed. Jesus is the one that cleansed
me. I pray that God would even now
cleanse you.